


now you finally know (that you control where you go)

by grison



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Adult creeping on a minor, Cunnilingus, Ego continues to be a shitty dad even when pretending to parent, Emotional child neglect, F/F, Fingering, Gen, Loss of Virginity, Mantis: not interested in any of the OMCs here, One Night Stands, Self-Discovery, Well-meaning but sexist male characters, bildungsroman, creepy men accosting women in public, not remotely sexy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-01-06 03:36:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12203106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grison/pseuds/grison
Summary: Social interactions are hard. Learning to read people when they're flirting with you is harder, especially when you spend most of your time around children and a living planet. Mantis is figuring things out at her own pace.Or, five times someone made a pass at Mantis and someone else intervened; plus one time Mantis propositioned someone else on her own damn terms.





	1. Ego

**Author's Note:**

  * For [questionsthemselves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionsthemselves/gifts).



The first time someone ever flirts with Mantis, she is really too young to realize what is going on.

The incident happens only a few cyclads after she emerges from her pupa, fragile and translucent and newly formed from the larva who had known only a little more than food. She had grown fat as a larva, both on the protein-rich slurry that Ego had provided her with when he remembered to and on the emotional energy projected by Ego whenever he wished to sleep; but her pupation had taken much of her fat and muscle. By this time, she is in the process of attempting to replace her energy reserves, her new body coltish and adolescence-thin.

(She sometimes wonders if Ego had known that she would pupate into a _person_ rather than remain a larva forever, and whether he would have kept her by him while he slept and planned if he had. Later, she will wonder if he ever quite realized that she was a person at all.)

On this occasion, Ego is off on one of his jaunts to find a new mother with which to weave a new progeny from his flesh and soil. Previously, Mantis had always been left on the ship in her little tank, feeding her body until Ego had use of her empathic powers, but this time is different. This time, he says, eyeing her with a critical eye, he thinks she might be useful to establish the false identity he will assume on this planet of neatly speckled, lank-haired bipeds. She is to pose as his adopted daughter, which in some way might make it easier for him to prove his potency with potential dams. Mantis is not sure she understand exactly what he is saying, but she knows better to ask.

He has currently left Mantis to amuse herself with a holomatter array in a park while he flirts and solicits attention from local women. She is sitting against a fountain tapping at brightly glittering puzzles, trying to untangle the shining lines of light between twinkling points, when an adult male approaches her.

“What’s a pretty little thing like you doin’ in a place like this?”

She is usually pleased to have a chance to practice her social skills on anyone new, but this man makes her uncomfortable. She is not sure what he wants from her, or what answer will best satisfy him, so how can she do well? Mantis chirps “I am solving a puzzle” anyway, to show good faith.

He smiles at her in a way that makes her wary and inquires about the kind of puzzle it is. Every time she answers him, he has another question waiting and ready for her, and none of them tell her at all why he wants her attention so badly. And each time she answers, he moves a little closer. It is upsetting. No one touches Mantis normally, and she has not observed that this species is a particularly touch-focused one.

She is acutely aware of how _large_ the man is. He is even larger than her master is in his usual form, although he is not as furry. He is leaning closely enough into her space that she can smell him, a blast of sharp chlorine and harsh musk that cuts through her nostrils and into the roof of her mouth. His eyes bob and wave in his skull and his huge lips smirk as he leans over her and reaches to touch her shoulder, and Mantis has not yet managed to regain enough empathic control to be able to keep herself from becoming lost in his feelings. She does not wish to touch this man. She thinks his emotions would be confusing and disjointed, and she is not eager to experience them.

Her master sweeps suddenly into view and sharply asks the man what his business is with her master’s ward. The man jumps—“ _how_ old is she?”—and makes himself scarce, and Mantis is relieved.

Mantis is very grateful to her master. It is reassuring to have someone who cares about her this much, enough to keep her safe and comfortable. She is not foolish enough to thank him for his help—she has learned on previous attention that he prefers her silence to her thanks, so he can focus on his grand plans—but she wishes she could make her gratitude plain without interrupting.

Mantis wishes for a lot of things, though; she has no reason to believe any of them might be granted to her. Better to cultivate satisfaction with what she does have, and focus on the good things about her life. After all, no master at all would be terribly lonely: where would she be then?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ironically, I wrote this and then went to birthday dinner at an all you can eat sushi joint with coffee_mage, where the waiter proceeded to hit on me increasingly blatantly and more uncomfortably for three hours. I... absolutely and completely failed to notice what he was doing and had assumed he was just really bored and annoyingly friendly, despite the fact that he was so obnoxious that the other waitstaff kept trying to come out and haul him away.
> 
> So I own a wedding ring again that I can wave around if I want, and I got to sympathize _real hard_ with Mantis in this section, my goodness.


	2. Ego redux

The second time someone flirts with Mantis, she is somewhat older and slightly more experienced in the ways of people. She is learning to pair the strange crinkles that most species make with their faces alongside the familiar surge of emotions that well up if they allow her to touch them. She is waiting alone, as she was the first time, but by this time she has realized that not all the inquiries she gets about her games and entertainment are motivated by genuine interest.

She has grown bored with the puzzles Ego left her with to entertain her, however: he has forgotten to update them in nearly a whole satellite-rotation, and she has memorized all of the solutions by now. Mantis has _nothing_ to occupy her on this colony of bright pink, cheery Krylorian-Xandarians, and she has been bored for far too long. Surely her master will not mind if she takes a short walk.

When Mantis notices a sign that says _Library and Makerspace_ , she is enchanted: surely this is a place for people like her master, people who exist to make things out of apparent nothingness and spin matter out of energy. She must go and see: perhaps her master will not be alone, after all! Perhaps this is where his kind congregate!

She arrives and peers cautiously into the opening room of the Makerspace, which she is slightly disappointed to find full of tools and bustling pink people operating them. Still, the objects they are crafting are fascinating in their own way, and Mantis truly has never been in any place quite like this. She steps through the doorway and watches the workers at their projects, her eyes wide.

Such skills! These people may not be able to create anything in the same way as Mantis’ master does, with an effortless exercise of thought and will, but their efforts are all the more fascinating for it. There are people making hand-carved wooden signs and weaving beautiful shining textiles and working grasken-hide into wearable garments and fashioning electronic circuitry and painstakingly coding holographic, three-dimensional art pieces. There is even someone in the corner with a small forge blowing molten glass into twisting shapes, stretching it out and folding it like candy fashioned out of the center of the stars.

Mantis is so entranced by what she is watching that when a young Krylorian woman pokes her head in from the door marked _Library_ and asks her if she is lost, she yelps and jumps. It is _very_ embarrassing. Ego has frequently criticized her for undermining his dignity by not hiding her wonder and enthusiasm effectively enough, and she rushes to stammer out an apology. “I’m—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been standing here; I’m waiting for my master to finish his business, and it was all just so _interesting._ I’ll leave right away!”

To her surprise, the young woman seems dismayed at this. “Oh, no, no, I wasn’t asking you to leave! You can stay and watch as long as you want, if you like. I was just—I’m the librarian, Archivist Neleek, so it’s my job to curate information for visitors and help people access things they need, so I just—I just wanted to make sure you weren’t in need of any help from me, that was all! Have you been here long? Do you need any help finding anything, or a tool to borrow?”

Mantis blinks. The flood of questions is a little overwhelming—Mantis is rarely asked for her opinions, even when she is walking on a planet—and so she seizes on the simplest question she can think of. “I—what is a ‘librarian?’” The word sits heavily on her tongue, and she wonders if the little translator chip Ego spun from the air and inserted under her newly softened skin when she emerged and started to speak is malfunctioning.

The young woman brightens. “Oh! Do they not have them where you are from? How strange. Librarians are community stewards—it’s up to us to manage communal resources so everyone can find the things they need, and no one goes without. We don’t handle directly helping people, you understand, but we help people find the groups of people who help others with whatever they need. And when people come in with questions, it’s our job to help answer them and help direct them to the places where they can find answers, if we don’t know the answers ourselves. We help people find entertainment files that suit their tastes, too, whether you prefer text or video or pleasing auditory or olfactory stimuli—although those you have to have a special periphery device to hook up to, I’m afraid. Ah! I’m afraid I’ve gone on too long—I haven’t even asked your name, and you’ve come so far! You must think I’m terribly rude!”

Mantis has never heard anyone so enthusiastic about questions, let alone anyone who says that her life’s work is helping people to answer them. It sounds nearly as magical as the Makerspace. Mantis has questions all the time, but no one has ever even tolerated hearing them, let alone been interested in helping her with answers. And certainly no one who is so pretty—Archivist Neleek's face lights up as she explains what she does, and it makes her face more and more bright and animated and friendly. Mantis wishes she had an excuse to touch her, her emotions are so nice.

She says so, explaining what her powers are as she has learned is polite. Archivist Neleek flushes an even brighter pink and shyly says she might, if she likes. Mantis solemnly reaches out and touches her hand, and wonders in the fluttery excitement and interest and cheerful happiness she finds there, mirrored from her own emotions without being influenced by them. It is a heady feeling, one she wishes would stay, even once she pulls her hand away. And so she sits in the Library's antechamber and speaks with Archivist Neleek a little while longer.

Archivist Neleek is full of questions about all the places Mantis has seen while journeying with her master, and Mantis does her best to answer from her limited experiences. She is also absolutely astonished when Mantis mentions that although she can read, she has never owned a digidex before. She pulls out a keyboard and taps quickly at the screen—"we'll just waive the residency question, no one has to know, you have to have some ability to access data files to read!"—and before Mantis knows it she has been signed up for a colony library access and given a simple, small rectangular device that apparently comes with the access.

Archivist Neleek smiles shyly at her as she hands Mantis the little device in its sleek carrying case, after making sure Mantis knows how to turn it on and hook it up to a data uplink to find stories and novels and texts on anything she likes. "I hope you like it, I just—no one shouldn't be able to find stories when they want them! That would be terrible! And it's no trouble, I just—I loaded some good tales on this for you when I was setting it up, you said you got a little bored sometimes…?"

Mantis is so overwhelmed she cannot speak. The possibilities in the little device—entertainment she does not have to rely on her master to provide! Being able to listen to stories, to be able to imagine them whenever she wants, to find things out on her own instead of collecting the scraps of information her master happens to drop when he thinks of it—! The possibilities expand to fill her head, fighting for space with the fluttering butterflies in her chest.

She can't control herself, she is so overflowing with gratitude; she flings herself at Archivist Nereek and clutches at her, burying her face in her neck, and _oh_ , that's a good smell—

The communicator and tracker her master insists she carry at all times sounds off. Oh, no. Oh, _no_ , she has lost track of time, her master will be so angry with her, and Mantis had been doing so well!

She whispers _sorry_ and _thank you_ into Archivist Neleek's collarbone, and then rips herself away from the other woman's arms to race back to the place where her master had left her to wait. She has the presence of mind to tuck the digidex into her shirt as she runs, though.

It's a good thing she does, because her master is angry when she returns—the child he left on this planet has apparently already died in the interim without being testable at all, and coupled with Mantis' absence Ego is in a cold fury. He tells her exactly how unforgivably responsible she had been, how she could have betrayed the whole Expansion with her tardiness, how he needs her to be reliable if his great purpose has a hair's chance of succeeding.

Mantis stands before him, head bowed, and listens to him speak his fill. It is all true—Mantis _is_ lazy and not very bright and has very few skills of her own—but it is also not anything that she has already heard. And he is so busy reminding her of these things that he does not notice the faint outline of the digidex distorting her clothing at her waist.

After that, Ego stops visiting planets to spawn children or recover them so often. He never notices her data pad or the uplink it contains, though, so Mantis finds herself spending increasing time browsing through the endless stories it provides. They are illuminating, although sometimes confusing.

What exactly _is_ a throbbing phallus, anyway?


	3. Drax

It has been a month since Ego was defeated, and Mantis is still adjusting to her new life with the Guardians in many ways. Everything is so _different_ here—from the bewildering diversity of the foods on offer to the number of people she talks to on a regular basis to the novelty of living in a _proper_ spaceship, one that doesn’t change its layout or rearrange itself in the night according to a new flight of fancy or aesthetic opinion.

 

And that is just on the ship. The Guardians may not be exactly sure where Mantis’ talents fit, but they take her along to _everything_ —whether or not she seems like she would be particularly useful, or even good at the task on hand. (The exception is still open combat. Mantis has learned to adjust to life on a ship that often earns its keep by taking on combat missions, but she is still not comfortable with actual fighting—and besides, as Rocket keeps grousing, Kraglin is still learning to operate his arrow without being a menace to every other fighter on board without having an untrained person getting in the way. So when the Guardians go out on combat jobs, Mantis is often left minding the ship with Groot.)

 

She does not mind. It is nice, too, to have a time to herself sometimes, to read more about the world on her now-battered but faithful digidex or practice her ship-scripting or her cooking skills with no one to watch her inevitable foolish errors. It is nicer yet, she thinks a little traitorously, to not have to constantly monitor who she touches as she moves through the ship, or to constantly keep a running mental tally of which facial crunches mean which things from which people. These moments of quiet are soothing; it is not often Mantis finds the opportunity to ignore the constant pressing feelings of others and just _be._

 

Today, however, Mantis is not spending her time on the ship. Today she is out with her fellow Guardians, who have split up among the markets to do their usual shopping. As is most common, Mantis has paired up with Drax to look for new ingredients for their larder: Drax is the only passable cook on the ship, and Mantis the only person who is interested in picking up the skill. So she walks with him, and as they go, he shows her how to look for bruises on the fruits; how to tap a mallowmelon to see if it is ripe, how to smell the rot hidden in a corner of a bundle of copira. She pays close attention. She likes Drax, who is always straightforward, and always explains to her everything he does so that she can follow along.

 

Drax is a good teacher. Mantis enjoys learning from him.

 

Right now, he’s looked over at the jeweler’s stall across the street from the vendor whose wares they’re picking through and started sniggering happily to herself. Mantis isn’t sure what the joke is, but she’d like to find out.

 

She particularly enjoys Drax because not only does he never mind explaining himself in words if she asks, but if she asks his permission he never minds if she touches him to feel his emotions. Sometimes she likes to check his emotions against his face, so she can see if she is reading them right. Faces, Mantis feels, are unnecessarily complex, but most people are uncomfortable letting her touch them so she is trying to learn to read emotions in the abstruse crunching and folding of faces instead. It is slow going, and having someone to practice translating her unsteady new knowledge of faces into the comforting certainty of _feelings_ makes it easier.

 

Today, she ghosts a bare palm to Drax’s elbow and immediately feels a rush of wild, jubilant amusement, so strong she can barely keep from giggling, herself. Mantis has long since learned to control her own emotions and separate them from the emotions she feels from others, but Drax’s personality is so strong and infectious that his feelings tend to leak through her shields. Releasing his arm after a moment’s bask, she smiles at him. “Why are you laughing?”

 

He gasps through his guffaws, “They are spending _so much money_ on those fancy rocks and twisted metal, and you can’t even eat them or make anything good with them! What fools! Surrounded by living things, and all they can see is shiny dead baubles!”

 

Mantis laughs, too—seen from that perspective, she can see why he finds the shoppers funny. She thinks it’s nice to make things beautiful, but she likes the thought of remembering that living things have their own quiet beauty, too.

 

* * *

 

She has wandered off from Drax to go and find some hreidzh for the stew pot when a Kree gentleman taps her on the shoulder. “Hey, don’t I know you from Cemoa?”

 

He doesn’t look familiar, and she says so. Unfortunately, he doesn’t take no for an answer.

 

“Nah, I gotta know you from somewhere, pretty little thing like you. I’d never forget a face like that.” The man leans into her and grins. For an expression of happiness and cheer, it is a remarkably unpleasant smile. “You spend much time at the Enkiru fairs on Imeril, maybe?”

 

Mantis reflects that she would really prefer it if more people would just refer to her as _ugly._ No one bothers the ugly on their grocery errands. Nevertheless, she remains polite. “It is unlikely, I think, that we have ever met. Perhaps you are thinking of someone else?”

 

“No, I couldn’t confuse _anyone_ with a lovely face like yours, gorgeous. Perhaps it’s somewhere else I know you from. Want to go down to that bar over there, see if we can’t hash it out between us?” His smile widens, and she thinks he is trying to make himself more ingratiating.

 

She grits her teeth and is preparing to request, rudely, that the man leave her alone when Drax barrels in.

 

“She told you that she did not know you, Kree!” He shoves his body between her and the man, looming as aggressively as she has ever seen him. “Go _away_ , and inflict your obsequious face on some other person.” He glares down at the man, who blanches, turns tail, and quickly walks away.

 

She’s glad the man is gone. “Thank you,” she tells Drax. He nods, huffs a breath through his shoulders, and goes to the merchant-keeper to haggle over their total.

 

* * *

 

Drax is quiet and unhappy as they walk back to the rendezvous with the other Guardians, their arms weighted down with bags of dry goods and vegetables. Eventually, he speaks:

 

“Why will you not allow me to teach you combat? You could repulse puny weaklings like that without a second thought.”

 

Mantis glances at him sidelong. “Because I do not wish to.”

 

Drax grumbles. “I do not like it. Why would you deliberately remain vulnerable to scoundrels if you can choose not to? Do you think I am an incompetent teacher? Gamora could teach you, if you preferred.”

 

Mantis grits her teeth: this has become an increasingly frequent argument since joining the Guardians, all of whom seem to think she is terrifyingly vulnerable without a weapon in her hand, and preferably more.

 

“I do not think you would be a poor teacher. It is simply that I do not want to learn.”

 

Drax exhales a breath of frustration. “Why not? Why would you not learn things that would keep you _safe_ if the worst were to happen? What if none of us were around to protect you? What if that man had tried to force you into that bar?”

 

Mantis looks up at him, marveling that he has forgotten again: the other Guardians sometimes recall that she is empathic and give her a wide berth or carefully avoid touching her, but Drax never does. “Drax. If he had tried to force me, I can feel what he is feeling. I can change his feelings. I can make him sleep, or I can make him bored, or I can make him afraid.” She is terribly irritated that she has to spell this out. “If I were to hit him, _I would feel his pain._ I do not wish to feel his pain, so I do not wish to learn how to more effectively inflict it at close range. And I do not wish to learn how to fire ranged weapons, because I do not wish to teach myself to dampen my most useful defense.”

 

He stares at her. She busies herself readjusting the groceries into a more effective configuration.

 

“I had not considered how your powers could be used to harm,” he says, slowly.

 

Mantis sighs. “It is not just that,” she adds. “If I am going to use my powers to change someone’s feelings instead of merely feeling them, I must _focus_ and I must be able to do it quickly. It is about will and concentration. I cannot focus on a weapon and my empathy at the same time. So I choose to trust in my powers and my will, and sharpen them until they are a reflex.”

 

He thinks about this. “You say that your will can be sharpened, yes?” She nods. “Then indulge me: instead of learning combat, practice your powers until you can use them most effectively.” He pauses and stares at her for a minute. “Practice on me. I will try very hard to feel one thing, and you will make me feel something else.”

 

Mantis considers this. She would also rather not do this, but the idea is… interesting. “Why?”

 

Drax looks solemn. “You should be safe. And I will not always be here to protect you.” He grimaces. “You should have safeguards of your own. Let me help you.”

 

She sighs. “All right. If it will make you feel better, I will try.”


	4. Drax redux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drax puts his foot in his mouth, and Mantis puts her hands between an altogether different pair of lips.

The hard work and practice pays off, and soon Mantis can twist even powerful emotions aside almost as easily as breathing—at least, she can if they relate to her in some way. General feelings are harder, because she finds that people swept away in feeling are often concentrating very hard on the source of that feeling and will talk themselves right back into it if she shoves them into a different one. The hard work and practice pays off, and soon Mantis can twist even powerful emotions aside almost as easily as breathing—at least, she can if they relate to her in some way. General feelings are harder, because she finds that people swept away in feeling are often concentrating very hard on the source of that feeling and will talk themselves right back into it if she shoves them into a different one. 

It serves well enough, anyway, that Mantis has long since stopped thinking of herself as particularly vulnerable when she is planetside. On this particular occasion, she and the Guardians are relaxing in a bar to celebrate a particularly rich victory that has all their accounts swelling with units. Rocket and Drax are off watching an orloni-race, cheering the poor naked little creatures on as they dive and leap to evade the fat aurex trying to catch and consume them. Mantis has chosen instead to hang out at the corner table that she and Gamora and Peter had all started at, although it looks like Peter has finally managed to achieve victory over Gamora’s second liver and get her tipsy enough to willingly dance with him in public. 

Not that Mantis, like the rest of the crew, hasn’t caught them gently swaying together in tiny nooks and crannies on the Quadrant scores of time by now. But they’re cute together, she thinks; she likes how Peter’s expansive warmth sloshes all over Gamora’s cool poise, relaxing her out of her usual controlled, precise movements. She looks happy. 

“Mind if I buy you a drink?” A warm alto voice interrupts her reverie, and Mantis glances up from watching her friends to find a tall, blue face smiling wryly down at her. “Would hate to impose if you’re after your solitude, but I’m out by myself tonight, and I could use a bit of company.” The Centaurian woman is a mess of scars, her tahlei nicked and tattered along its edge with a deep rip in it as it curls under the neck of her shirt towards the curve of her spine, and she’s missing an eye—but she’s dressed like a Xandarian merchant trader, not a fighter, and Mantis is suddenly curious. 

“No, ah, feel free! You’re not bothering me at all.” She smiles—Mantis has become rightfully proud of her smiles, with all the practice she’s put in—and waves her hand in welcome, careful not to touch. The woman would have been tall and willowy even without the proud tahlei rising from her head; as it is, the fin in question is slightly bent by the ceiling, and Mantis is particularly careful to avoid brushing it. That’s rude, after all. “What’s your name, and why are you alone tonight?” 

The woman smiles again, quick as a spark curling off a bonfire and twice as warm. “I’m Tombi. And you could say… you could say I’m just passing through on business right now.” She calls to the bartender, requesting a glass of dzhale for herself and—she pauses at Mantis, who abruptly realizes that she’s waiting on Mantis’ drink order and blurts out a request for a mug of tsame. It’s a bit late, after all, and she might be out a while longer yet; best not to drink too much more all at once for now. Drinks ordered, she turns back to Mantis and adds, a little apologetically, “I’m a spices trader; I’m only out this far because I’m looking for new suppliers for for my buyers out in Shi’ar space. It’s hard to always be looking for new tastes that people will like, especially when your tastes aren’t always the same as everyone else’s. You’d be surprised how often something that tastes like armpits to me will excite someone else—or just make them break out in hives or fall over.” 

Mantis nods, hoping she’s doing so at least a little intelligently. “My shipmates are all very different in what they will and will not eat as well as in their nutrient requirements. It can make finding suitable meal options… challenging.” Last week’s episode had included a dish scented with an herb that Peter said reminded him of something called ‘peppermint’ before digging into it enthusiastically… while poor Rocket had taken one whiff before racing off to his quarters to bury his nose in something else to mask the scent. Everyone else had been more or less neutral on the taste, but just to be safe Mantis had agreed not to purchase the nepenthe again. 

Tombi’s laughter when she relays the story is pleasantly gratifying. 

* * *

 

As the night spins on, Tombi carelessly reaches past Mantis for a sweetener packet and looks startled when Mantis jerks her arm back reflexively. Abashed, Mantis feels she has to explain: “Ah—I am a touch empath. If I touch you, I can feel your emotions. Not…” She imagines Gamora, who is still careful to keep a safe distance at all times. “Not everyone likes that.” 

For her part, Tombi looks intrigued and leans forwards, proffering a hand. “Oh! I haven’t run into someone else who can do something like that in a long time!” Noting Mantis’ astonished stare, she adds “My people have something similar through our crests, although it doesn’t need touching. But it’s not so much emotions we can feel as a sense of—” she gropes for words, waving her hands enthusiastically, “—a sense of life, I suppose.” She smiles widely, revealing a mouth of jagged yellow-white teeth. “May I?” She extends a hand to Mantis, who reaches out and places her own gently over the knobby knuckles and neatly trimmed black nails. 

And she feels—oh. Oh. A warm, simmering fascination the plum-wine taste of appreciation and enjoyment and the tingling pleasant sensation of sex lightly dancing around the edges. Oh. Mantis feels answering warmth springing up from her own belly as a smile steals across her face. “I see.” She thinks quickly, logistics slotting into place: it’s certainly not the first time that one of the crew hasn’t returned for the night from a celebratory mission, although normally it’s Kraglin who vanishes into the night out of a seedy bar after a quick, quiet word with Peter. She’d rather not bring anyone home to her own little cabin on the _Quadrant_ —the odds of an awkward run-in are high, especially given Rocket’s tendency to burst into any of the rooms at all hours in search of some spark or widget for one of his projects. But if she vanishes without letting anyone know about her plans, her crewmates will worry. Better drop a quick word with someone first.

Since she looked around last, Peter and Kraglin have moved on to a spirited competition on some sort of mechanical, chirping games machine in the corner with what look like toy blasters. They keep shoving each other and jostling one another; Gamora has given up on them in disgust and gone to gossip with Rocket.

Perfect.

Mantis slips over to them. “Hello,” she says, waving a hand in front of the gamescreen to get their attention. Apparently this is inadvisable, because the game abruptly makes a crashing noise and both men wail in disgust as the game appears to end. 

“Aw, Mantis, I was winning!”

Kraglin whips his head around to glare at Peter, and then returns his attention to her. “You were _not_ —sorry, Mantis, what d’you need?”

Well, this seems like a good moment to let them know and slip out the door. “I was coming to tell you that—”

Of course, she doesn’t notice that Drax has padded up behind her until it is too late. 

“Mantis! What are you doing?” 

She smiles at him, pleased. “Tombi Kaluyu—” she jerks her head in the direction of the other woman, who glances curiously over at them— “has invited me to her ship for, ah, _coffee_. I intend to accept, and wanted to tell Peter where I was going.”

Drax looks horrified. “That woman does not want to _drink coffee_. She wants to have sex with you.” Both Peter and Kraglin make pained, horrified noises at this, but Drax soldiers calmly on. “You will be making a terrible mistake: she is the wrong kind of person for you. You will get hurt!” 

Mantis stares at him, nettled. “I knew that already. I was simply trying to, ah… use _euphemism_ correctly, to ease the social interaction and to prevent myself from forcing Peter and Kraglin to acknowledge my sexual activities.”   
(Behind her, Kraglin mutters something about the effort being appreciated, his ears throbbing a deep sapphire blue.) 

Drax waves his hands. “You do not know what you are getting into! You are too young to choose a partner, and that one certainly will not stay for long. She is a bad choice! You need a partner who will share your values, one who will make a strong helpmate. Pick someone who is less into…” He sniffs dimissively. “Dancing with the first person to come along.” 

Peter interjects. “Hey! Nothing wrong with a bit of dancing now and then.” 

Drax sniffs again. “Anyway, she is too old for you. And she is unlikely to join the Guardians, anyway.”

She blinks. “I am not intending to _marry_ Tombi Kaluyu, only to _have sex_ with her. They are different things, Drax.” She had not realized he was this poorly informed about social custom, but perhaps that information will alleviate his concern.  
Apparently not—Drax screws up his face worse. “That makes it worse! It will be much harder to find a serious partner if you dance with the first person to offer!” 

Peter narrows his eyes. “Drax, has—has dancing been code for casual sex _this whole time_?” When Drax looks suspiciously like he’s pretending not to have heard, Peter yelps “I knew it, I’m going to have so much to yell at you about later!” 

Mantis glares at him. “I am not asking your permission or your advice, and you are not my keeper. I will find partners who are compatible with my preferences, not yours.” She has visions, suddenly, of Ego and his tendency to make decisions on her behalf; abruptly she loses all patience with Drax. “I will be back in the morning. Do _not_ follow me.” She glares at him, wheels, and stalks back to Tombi’s table, where she tugs on the other woman’s sleeve. “Let’s go.” Tombi raises her eyes but stands gracefully.

* * *

 

Mantis storms out of the bar, dragging Tombi by a silk-sleeved arm—fortunately the tall woman follows without needing to be dragged much—until she’s well out of sight of the rest of them. She’ll comm when she feels like it, and Drax can sit and keep his feelings to himself until then. 

Tombi’s apprehension passes over her like a wave over her simmering resentment—not that Mantis can feel it through her gloves and the sleeve, but there’s not too many other reasons that she can think of for the taller woman to keep warily watching her from the corner of her eye. Eventually, as they’ve blown past a few streets, Tombi nudges her gently against her shoulder. “Your friends gonna be okay without you?” She worries her lower lip; Mantis finds herself mesmerized for a moment, wondering how those lips might taste against her own. “I mean, I like you and all, kid, but I ain’t worth burning any bridges over. Not when my ship’s only got room for one and there’s a delivery halfway across the Third Arm waiting for me in a cycle.” 

Mantis scoffs. “They will be just fine without me, and I will meet up with them in the morning.” She pauses, suddenly afraid she has misstepped. “Or—if you would rather not—I can find lodging for the night elsewhere—” 

Tombi relaxes and turns to grin at her, slow and warm, gapped teeth resting gently against her lip. “Oh. I don’t think you need to do that any time soon.” She leans down to kiss Mantis, simmering gently with warm anticipation that is flooding out the echoes of worry and uncertainty that faintly remain. Warm, Mantis feels, a touch dazed with the dual sensations of her own responses—the novelty of the wide palm on her cheek, the soft lips on her breath, the tastes and smells of someone new—and the comfortable, easy pleasure wafting off Tombi herself. She must not respond quickly enough, overwhelmed by the sensation, because Tombi pulls back and eyes her thoughtfully. “You ever done this before?” 

Mantis winces; she’d hoped her inexperience was less obvious than that. “I have not. I… hope you will not think less of me for that.” 

Tombi smiles again. “Everyone starts somewhere, right?” 

* * *

Once through the door, Mantis is determined not to let her shyness embarrass her again, and she pulls Tombi down and presses her into a kiss, melding her whole body up against the taller woman’s torso. The lean curves and spare limbs delight her, and she pushes insistently, wanting more—and Tombi worms a hand up between them, murmurs ‘easy, easy’ and slows her down, and it’s just… 

It’s nice, but Mantis is impatient, and she doesn’t want to be managed. She hitches a leg around Tombi’s thigh, delighting in the warm friction and rubbing herself against it. Tombi tries to slow down again and Mantis impatiently grinds herself up, reveling in the press of abdomen against her chest as her torso slides along Tombi’s. She plays with the ridges of Tombi’s back where her tattered but proud crest erupts from the clean lines of her spine; her fingers questing under the flap of the flat-bound lower fin and delighting in the novelty of the unfamiliar texture. 

She’s gotten good at blocking and filtering emotion, a small part of her thinks smugly. There was a time when she’d have lost herself in her partner’s feelings entirely with this much contact, no matter how weak the emotions were—let alone something like this. She’s managing it so nicely, all her attention carefully on her own responses, but she can feel Tombi’s amusement filtering through the careful mental boundaries Mantis stakes like iron bars between her own feelings and the intrusive pressing emotions of the outside world. She devotes a little more effort to those stakes, regretful but determined not to lose herself in this, and then—

oh !!!!! That’s—that’s _fingers_ on her _nipple_ , a touch more gentle than Mantis usually prefers when she’s at home but encouraging all the same. She tries to fight out of her shirt without actually pulling away, suddenly thwarted by the familiar material and enraged at the unfairness of it all. Tombi laughs and falls away anyway, flopping to the floor to pull off her boots, and of course it’s easier to wriggle her way out of her clothing if she’s not trying to do eight things all at once.   
Mantis tries not to sulk as she pulls off her tunic. At least the pause gives her a moment to glance around the cramped little M-ship cabin. It’s comfortably warm and humid, which feels nice on her bare skin but which she suspects might be a little unpleasant without it. She’s suddenly self-conscious about that same bare skin, uncertainly eyeing her thin, bony knees, her inadequate tits, the odd shiny patches of skin that form when she isn’t careful about shining the harder carapace formations down to maintain flexibility. 

Bad idea to dwell on that, she resolutely decides, and tosses the rest of her clothing in a neatish pile. Then she looks up at Tombi, whose fin has just sprung loose from the twisting compression of her shirt, and gapes in delight—she’s the most lovely thing, Mantis thinks fleetingly, that she’s ever seen. She freezes for a moment, suddenly shy. 

Tombi crosses her legs from the bed in the open doorway, entirely unashamed, and grins at her. “C’mere, then. Where’s all that enthusiasm from a moment ago?” Her fin flexes back and forth, the tattered edges gently fluttering, as her grin widens. 

Mantis smiles a moment, relaxing, and reaches out to touch. Almost immediately she can feel the warm, delighted sensation of anticipation and amusement wafting off the other woman. Tombi’s not got much in the way up top, even less than Mantis herself, but she has enough jiggle to be fascinating when Mantis reaches out to touch it, just soft enough to mold her hand against Tombi’s curves. The older woman laughs, catches the corner of her mouth with a kiss, and murmurs at her: “Take your time.”

Nettled only for a moment, Mantis looks down and studies what Tombi has between her own legs. The anatomy is different from Mantis’ own; the outer labia look oddly prominent and arch proudly around the cresty ridge that has to hide a clit, and the inner ones dangle softly and loosely between them. There’s not much hair; having seen other Centaurians, Mantis isn’t much surprised. She’s fascinated and reaches out—gets a nod from Tombi before she touches—and slips her fingers between the lips, silky warmth of the soft skin throbbing gently under her fingerpads. Her belly is so warm as she explores the textures. She thinks of something, suddenly, and drops her head to mouth Tombi’s left nipple as she rubs circles through the skin, finding the sensitive nub of the clit where she’d expected under that ridge.

“Oof—oof, not quite that hard, easy,” moans Tombi, and gasps _most_ gratifyingly when Mantis lightens her pressure. It’s not quite what she likes, herself, but isn’t that supposed to be part of the point of doing this with another person? She slips a finger deeper, trying to keep her touch light, and abruptly feels a warm, yielding absence of pressure. Tombi makes a soft noise and throws her head back, muttering “oh, yes, more of that” and “put some pressure up top, would you?” Mantis thinks about this and uses another hand to quest around the edges of those unfamiliar firm labia for the clit and its hood. This is apparently what was wanted; here Tombi rolls her hips forward and purrs, and Mantis thinks “a _ha_.” This is new. This is _wonderful_.

“Move your hands? Curl the inside finger, and maybe rub hard around the outside?” Tombi asks, after a moment, and Mantis does her best to do as she’s told as Tombi, apparently delighted, rolls her head back and babbles disarmingly about how perfect she is, what a quick study, how lovely she is, more fingers now, oh, _wonderful_. It’s gratifying, and she lets go of the nipple—her neck is beginning to ache as she tries to do three things at once, anyway—and buries her head into the musky-smelling glory of Tombi’s inner thigh as she concentrates on her hands. The outer labia extend outward as Tombi arches again, grabbing gently around Mantis’ hand and trapping it in place. Suddenly, Tombi shudders all over and tenses, and—is that it? Is that what she’s looking for? 

Mantis isn’t sure, but in a minute Tombi props herself up on her elbows and says “Hold on, hold on—lean back, let me show you something, gorgeous. Come sit right up here.” 

Mantis obediently heaves herself up onto the edge of the heaped pillows and, when Tombi gestures a bit, opens her thighs—she’s read about _this_ but—it’s odd, that’s all, as Tombi leans down between her legs, tucking her shoulders under Mantis’ thighs, not at all what she might have expected if she’d bothered to expect at all—and then there’s, oh, there’s lovely pressures, a tongue moving soft-and-firm-and-firm-and-soft over her own inner lips, circling her clit— _there_ the gentlest suggestion of teeth that makes Mantis outright yell in enthusiasm and arch her back as she tries not to do anything too damaging with her legs. And oh, that clever tongue, those lips on hers, dancing over everything—she finds herself rolling her hips and stops herself, finds herself grabbing for hair that isn’t there and clenching her thighs and saying all the best things she’s thinking, wants this to go on forever, and she builds and builds and builds until abruptly she _bursts_ —

And oh, oh, oh, that’s nice, that feeling coursing through her; she’s found it before with fingers and time, but not so _nicely_ as that. Mantis heaves her upper torso up on her elbows to look over, the space between her legs slick and dripping, and—seeing Tombi’s elegant, ripped fin cresting gracefully over the smooth curve of her head, rising under her mons like a rock shore out of the ocean; it’s almost enough to make her clit throb again. Oh. Oh, that’s _nice_ , she thinks, and then abruptly blushes when Tombi’s chuckle informs her that she’s apparently talking out loud.

“Do you know much about toys? Because I’ve got a few I bet you’ll love, gorgeous,” Tombi tells her, grinning through slick lips, and Mantis loves her just a little in that moment. She’s already taking mental notes for the next time she’s able to visit a few particular stops on some of the planets they go meeting clients on, and this will give her so much more information than the reviews and descriptions she’s carefully pored over on the infonets. 

The warm feeling is beginning to return, and with it the anticipation. Fleetingly, Mantis reflects that she’s really made quite a good choice indeed. Certainly this is better than curling up in her usual nook with another novel ported from the holofeeds! 

The night passes, then, and eventually she falls asleep with Tombi loosely curled around her spine. It’s nice to feel protected as she sleeps. It’s a strange sensation: Mantis hasn’t slept with anyone as far back as she can remember, but the contact is comforting. 

* * *

In the morning, Tombi awakens her with a pleasant kiss and a breakfast pastry, promising a welcome start to the new day. She’s smiling when she pulls her clothes on, newly showered, and saunters home to the Quadrant. In fact, she must look so obviously pleased with herself that when she passes Kraglin in the hallway on the way to her rooms and shower, he grins crookedly at her and says “Get it, girlie.” 

She beams back, smiling all the way home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoof, this was hard to write! Sorry for the wait--there's a lot of blockage about writing explicit f/f for me, apparently, but also it was important for me that the scene felt real. I hope it does for you, too. This is also my first ever non-comedic sex scene, which was also pretty nervewracking, so please be kind!

**Author's Note:**

> The title here is from Missy Higgin's excellent _Steer_.
> 
> For HaviCat, who enables me.


End file.
